Year 2 Quarter 1 Report

The program is implemented by Abt Associates, Inc. and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), under Cooperative Agreement AID-612-A-11-00038, USAID Malawi Health Policy and Systems Strengthening Program. The program's purpose is to provide technical assistance to Malawi's Ministry of Health (MOH) in support of improved policies, management, and leadership, and fiscal responsibility, in a collaborative effort to strengthen Malawi's healthcare system. The program focuses on six results, including increased and coordinated advocacy for and implementation of evidence-based policies, strengthened strategic leadership and management capacity of MOH, improved and strengthened zonal supervision structures of MOH, improved leadership and management of HRH, improved decentralized management of district health services, and strengthened health financing mechanisms, financial planning, and budget execution capability at national, zonal, and district levels for sustainability. During the first quarter of FY2013, the program made significant progress in all result areas. The program completed the draft Policy Development Framework and started working on the manual. Further consultations were conducted with MoH Directors and Senior to get more input on MoH policy priorities. The program also completed drafting the M&L Concept, instructional design materials, and facilitators' guides. In the Supportive Supervision result area, the program conducted two consultative meetings, resulting in an initial checklist which will be reviewed by all key MoH programs before being completed and loaded on the smart phone. The program also completed the final draft for the HRH Strategic Plan and submitted it to MoH and circulated to other stakeholders. In the decentralized management result area, the program supported the review of DIP development, specifically making contributions on civil society engagement and guidelines on DIP monitoring and evaluation. Financial management coaching and mentorship plans were developed in Salina and Kasungu, and initial coaching was conducted in the areas of reporting, expenditure tracking, drug reconciliations, internal controls, and internal controls. Under the result health financing area, the program conducted a health financing situation analysis and presented the results to stakeholders through the technical working group and the health financing situation analysis. The technical evaluation of 23 potential strategic options was undertaken in collaboration with the Clinton Health Access Initiative. The evaluation reports are scheduled for completion by January 2013.